


Moon Gates

by Sacrulen



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, i wrote this fic for me but you can read it if you want!, introspective conversations (About the original character)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24668476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sacrulen/pseuds/Sacrulen
Summary: Ysayle and Sadahiko talk shop, and by shop I mean childhood trauma.
Kudos: 4





	Moon Gates

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at work almost a year ago while bored and only just found it in my onenote again so why not just slap it on here.
> 
> Sadahiko is a Raen Au Ra who previously lived in Doma and, after an interesting and varied life, found himself living in Ishgard as a temple knight for the Fortemps family. He's not a WoL, just coming along to protect master Alphinaud (and talk to Ysayle apparently).

Soil in Dravania was dry. Dust and dirt was kicked up with every step one took along its path. If they were there for nothing more than a stroll it would have been bearable, but Ysayle insisted on walking ahead of the group, and the Gnath - gods, the Gnath. They flung themselves at anything that moved with a high pitched screech and clicks that mirrored their inhuman appearance.

To Sadahiko, it was as simple as flicking his blade or firing a shot. Their mandibles crushed at the slightest touch, crumpled into itself and gave way to death.

"You have the poise of someone who's seen many battles. Tell me, many dragons has that blade culled?"

There was no venom in her voice, though it was steeped in the same bitter coldness that drowned all of Ishgard's spires. Iceheart herself was too poised for battle; her thumb was nestled between the diagrams that adorned that grimoire of hers as easily as Sadahiko had swung. There would have been no survivors here, even if Sadahiko was not so trained to respond, to fight and kill.

"No dragons, just men." he said, sheathing the gunblade on his back once more. The temple knight uniform he wore always unnerved the heretic, and he could see that from their first meeting. She was not as wary about him as the dragoon, but their conversations had been brusque and short, and non-existent when she could manage it.

"Men?" He expected Ysayle to be confused by his comment, but not as disgusted as she was. "Have you joined the other temple knights in terrorising those in the Brume?"

Sadahiko understood now, and knew the answer he wanted to give; he would never exert his power over those in a worse situation than him, for his blade is for protecting those he holds dear and not for simply taking a life. He wished he could answer that, but the blade belonged to Garlemald, who on his behalf terrorised those in its provinces. He had left that life now, betrayed Garlemald and fled from battle, but the insignia was on the forge that formed the blade and on every speck of steel he touched.

"Have you heard of Doma?"

Ysayle shook her head.

"It's the city where I grew up, far to the east and over the ocean past Thavnair and Radz-at-Hann," Sadahiko spoke, but Ysayle gave a terse laugh.

"I nary know the lands outside of this corner of Eorzea, and here you are speaking of oceans and lands I'll never see!"

"It's a small place, so far from here it's like a different world," which it was, so far removed from the clashing of steel in snow, and yet so similar. "Garlemald owns it now. You must know of them?"

"I do," she said, and frowned. "Are you telling me that you joined them? Is that where you killed all those men?"

"Those out in the provinces have little choice about whether they want to join or not," he said, though he knew in his heart his reason for joining, the choices that he made.

Sadahiko motioned for Ysayle to start moving, that they might continue the conversation while still making their way forward. Ysayle picked her way around the gnath remains at their feet, careful not to get any of that green blood that poured from the mandibles on the hem of her coat. Sadahiko then stepped his way over it. Ysayle seemed to enjoy the silence between them; before she asked her questions moments ago the first part of their journey was made in silence too. She was a hard woman to read, though he had not spent much time around the opposite sex outside of the army and his family. Before he had felt the frost in the air, her stern eyes disapproving of his every move, his dress and his attitude towards anything. Something in her face seemed to have melted now, she was furrowed and frowning but not out of anger, at least that’s what he thought. He daren't say anything to her again, lest that softness be left behind on the path they walked. Instead, he waited for her to speak again.

"I know where Doma is now, but what is it like?" She asked, quiet now.

It was hard for Sadahiko to describe Doma when he felt no worldly attachment to what it was, or what it stood for. Doma was barely a home to him now. Doma was the clashing of blades over farmers' fields, the subjugation of a people to serve a higher purpose. Doma was a shining jewel cast out of the box for a crime of convenience and for the promise of something bigger, brighter and better on the eastern horizon. Doma was a name nailed to a castle, a land of caged nightingales and his brother's nose dripping blood into the gravel that made the site of morning sword practice, his mother's yearning for something else, his sister's fear of what her fate foretold.

"When I was a boy," he started, though he had no idea why he thought of this story, and regretted even beginning it as soon as he took the breath to speak, "there was a sword fighting competition in Monzen, which was the district where all of the nobles and samurai lived."

"Like the pillars, then?" Ysayle asked, and Sadahiko nodded. "You're skilled with that blade of yours," she continued, "were you noticed by a nobleman and sponsored to play for their idle son?"

Sadahiko smiled. "I'm flattered that you've recognised my talents, but you've missed the mark just a little. I was invited because I was the son of one of the most powerful men in Doma. I was a noble just like them."

"What?" Ysayle exclaimed. Her voice was soaked in shock and amusement. "You, a noble!?"

"Yes!" He replied, and he found himself smiling, almost laughing back with her. "My father was so important that we were by then invited to live in the castle while even the prince did not. We must have been the most influential family in that city."

"I can barely believe you to be some princeling lord stowed away in his castle. You've not the arrogance or the pettiness of any Ishgardian noble I've ever met. You're far too… Well, normal!" If Sadahiko had at all cared about his title, he might be offended with how amusing Ysayle found all of this. Instead he laughed along. All the title ever felt like was a chain holding a placard around his neck.

"What was it like? In the castle, I mean." Ysayle asked, childish intrigue filling her voice, much to Sadahiko's surprise.

"Not at all like anything you might see in Ishgard," Sadahiko started. "It was once beautiful and full of art and the centre of the city, but the Garleans used it as their base, and stuffed it heaven-on-high with magitek - machines, if you've never seen them before. Living there was…" Sadahiko trailed off, kicking some dust up as he thought. "I much preferred our old home in the noble's district."

"I see," Ysayle spoke. "But go on, what of the competition?"

On the morning of the competition, Sadahiko's father had given both him and his brother a stern talking to. What did the competition mean to them, and what did it mean to everyone outside of the castle walls? To those on the outside, it was a chance to show up the family afforded so much protection by the Garleans, to prove that the old ways of Doma were still better, and the issue of who lived within the castle walls and who did not was trivial.

His brother hadn't listened to a word of it, obviously intimidated by their father's tone. Sadahiko had known this the moment he glanced sideways at him and saw that he was staring at his feet. Everyone present knew that Akihiko would fail his match spectacularly, though no one dared to even speak it. His father hadn't even decided to show up to spectate it, the final nail in Aki's coffin. Sadahiko had, as did the prince to his surprise. They both witnessed the younger Kaneto lose within the first ten seconds, and run off crying after the fact. It was probably better that their father hadn't seen - he'd have scolded Akihiko so heavily for his tears that he would spend the whole night sobbing even more in his room, or crawl in to Sadahiko's bed in the middle of the night for comfort.

"Yes. My opponent… Well it was randomly drawn, but the draw had a sense of humour, and my first opponent was the prince of Doma himself," Sadahiko said, and Ysayle's now raised eyebrow was accompanied with a smirk. "Hien." That was his name. They had met before, always fleeting and brief. Hien must have known who he was by now, that imposing tall au ra who stole his spot as the principal son of the castle of Doma. Sadahiko had seen the inside of those walls more than the boy whose birthright it was. Their bow before the match was stiff and full of words unspoken, never to be spoken, in the shadow of their home.

The fight was a long one, the two boys were drenched in sweat and their chests both heaved from the exertion they were placing on each other and the weight of their honour on their backs. It was only natural that the audience cheered fiercely for Hien. Sadahiko had once been cheered for too, a long time ago. Five years old and his home was burned before him, forged into hard iron in the flames and now was cold to the touch, no place for life and wholly unreceptive to warmth

"Well?" Ysayle asked, and Sadahiko looked back at her. "Did you win?" 

"No, it was a loss for me. The people celebrated his victory into the night as though the prince had won the entire tournament that day."

Ysayle shook her head. "When I asked you what Doma was like, I can't say I was expecting this childhood memory. Are you still bitter over your defeat? You seem like a man who clings to his skills."

Sadahiko sighed, shrugged and shook his head. "If you want to know about my experiences of what Doma was like, it's all in that competition. I was a Doman just like them, but…"

But they celebrated his bruises, his face in the dirt. They celebrated that his brother was a weakling, they mocked him for it. He was born in Doma, knew no other home than its cliffs, drank the same water that all the Domans did. That was not enough. He wanted to say that. He didn't want to explain it all to Ysayle, all of the backstory and reasons and feelings behind it, but he wanted to say it. Instead he lost his words in his throat and couldn't grasp them again. 

They had arrived now at that derelict dragon statue, buffeted by dust storms and its features long forgotten by the scenery. Sadahiko took the detour from the dusty path as an opportunity to rest his feet, sitting himself on the crumbling bricks. He expected Ysayle to join him, but she stayed stood, her arms folded and her hair swaying in the wind. She stared expectantly at Sadahiko, expecting him to carry on the trailing sentence he had left behind him.

"My father defected from Doma. He betrayed the country to ensure he could still keep some kind of status under the Garleans," Sadahiko spoke, his eyes fixed straight ahead on the grass and the rocky scape and not straying towards Ysayle. "My name would not incite happy feelings around the streets of Doma."

In his earliest memory, his mother was grasping at his father's arms, telling him to focus on what she was saying. The Garleans, she had known them in Kugane. They had airships, their dignitaries had firearms hanging on their waste that no sword could defeat. His father had asked her what she would have him do, and she told him that there was no heroics in fighting against a foe that would slaughter him in a second. 

What about us!

Sadahiko didn't remember her face, even though he could see it. She was nothing but a blur, a smudge with words snaking out of its dark centre to curl and latch themselves onto his father's mind. If he thought long enough, he could imagine fear in that darkness, or a coy smile, or her perfectly made up face, smooth and powdered and dashed with eyeshadow that complimented her lighter tone. His father, he could only see his back: large and adorned with his red armour and straight and foreboding, as bright as the moon gates and a better protector back then. In the coming years they crumbled; the red was cut into with magitek and the material eroded, and he snapped at his children and beat them.

He had loved it when his father picked him up, brought him on his shoulders and carried him around up there. One day you'll be as tall as me, he'd say. He was taller now, after years of dragging himself through a world not welcome. He had grown every night he let his brother sneak into his bed, when he tended to his bloody noses and made sure he made it to practice on time the next day. He carved those arched gates into his back and they wouldn't leave him now he'd left the sight of them behind. The etchings still ached, made themselves known to him with every memory laid to bare. It tired him these days. He could never let himself forget.

He did not know when Ysayle had taken it upon herself to sit beside him, but he was snapped out of his reminiscing with a brush of her arm against his coat. It surprised him, and not many things could, and he shuffled over to create space between them.

"As a heretic, I look at the known doctrine of Ishgard and I rebel. I look at beliefs held for centuries and I say no. Is that so unlike your father?"

Sadahiko knew Ysayle was only trying to ease his mood, break him from his brooding, but he shook his head. "I do not know what my father was thinking when he betrayed Doma. Did he do it to protect his family? To preserve his place? Was he greedy or concerned in those moments? Was he…" he trailed off again and sighed, shaking his head. "I don't know. But I do know that you and he couldn't be more different. You fight for righteousness and truth. You want to right a wrong! I would never believe that my father fought for those reasons. He may have betrayed for love or for power, but he did not do it because he thought garlemald righteous, that much I know. So unlike you."

For some reason, even though Sadahiko had corrected her so bluntly, Ysayle gave a smile. "I believe that is the first compliment I have ever received from a temple knight."

That made Sadahiko laugh again, finally. "Get used to it," he said, pulling himself onto his feet again. Ysayle stayed seated, her heels neatly interlocked and her slender hands in her lap.


End file.
